Thing 11

This is not my first foray into blogging. I wrote a blog about books and being a mom and working as a librarian. And it was a lot of fun. I had a nice group of readers who would leave thoughtful and encouraging comments. But after a while, I felt more and more pressure to be entertaining and witty in my writing. This was a self-imposed pressure - it wasn't like the people reading my blog left comments that said, "Hey, this is boring, could you liven it up a bit?" This pressure to be funny caused a writer's block that I never really recovered from. I took a break from blogging and when I came back, my readers were gone. Without a group of commentators it felt like there was little point in continuing.

I like to leave comments on other people's blogs. I know how I feel when someone responds to what I have written - it is a validation of sorts, that what you are thinking and feeling is interesting and important and it is nice to give someone else that same support. I also find comments are a great way to ask for further information about the topic of the post. A great thread can grow from asking a question or two.

Because I am behind a bit, I read Thing 10 of several bloggers participating in 23Things so as not to spoil what I hadn't learned yet! It was very helpful and I learned about a couple of different uses for YouTube that I hadn't explored like finding book trailers to share with students. I also read about videos of authors reading their books and thought that would be a super use of YouTube. I left comments and I will check back in a few days to see if there are any responses to them.